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Canada Revokes Charity Status of Jewish Nonprofits Supporting Israel
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters, primarily university students, rally at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square on Oct. 28, 2023. Photo by Sayed Najafizada/NurPhoto
Canada on Sunday officially revoked the charitable status of two Jewish nonprofit organizations that allocate funds to support projects in Israel, including the Jewish National Fund Canada, a move that JNF Canada described as a “wrong and unjustified decision” allegedly influenced by antisemites.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) made the announcement regarding JNF and the Ne’eman Foundation Canada in notices posted in the Canada Gazette, the government’s official newspaper. CRA said the charities failed to meet parts of Canada’s Income Tax Act but did not elaborate further.
JNF announced in late July that it filed a lawsuit in the Federal Court of Appeal to contest the CRA decision, saying that the agency’s review process “was flawed and fundamentally unfair.” The Jewish group is also arguing that there is “reasonable apprehension of bias” in the audit that CRA conducted. They claim the CRA was pressured by antisemites and anti-Israel activists to revoke the group’s charitable status, and that it “was an important consideration” for the CRA when it decided to take action against the charity.
“As a Zionist-inspired organization, JNF Canada has many vociferous antisemitic detractors who we believe have influenced the decision-making process in this matter,” the nonprofit explained in a released statement. “We believe that arguably there is a reasonable apprehension of bias on the part of the CRA. This evidence of bias comes from the CRA’s own records, which show that the public pressure on the CRA and the Minister of National Revenue to revoke JNF’s status was an important consideration within the chain of authority at the Charities Directorate. A review of the record would leave a reasonable person with the impression that this pressure resulted in a biased decision.”
JNF Canada said it has evidence that the Charities Directorate was monitoring campaigns and comments made by those who are opposed to the group’s support for the Jewish state, specifically the anti-Israel nonprofit organization Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV), which has been involved in four complaints against JNF Canada.
“Given the current environment, the CRA’s decision will be seen as a victory for anti-Israel and antisemitic movements and groups,” the pro-Israel group added.
In a Q&A shared on its website on Aug. 1, JNF Canada said CRA claims the Jewish group “has failed to exercise adequate direction and control” over its primary intermediary in Israel, which is Karen Kayemeth Le’Israel (KKL). The Israeli organization focuses on developing the land of Israel “for a sustainable future,” “strengthening the bond between the Jewish people and its homeland,” and “supporting Zionist and environmental education,” according to its website.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel, KKL-JNF provided support to communities impacted by the terrorist attack, raised funds, and bought ambulances and equipment for community emergency squads, The Jerusalem Post reported. KKL-JNF also established a special scholarship program that provided NIS 4,000 (roughly $1,075) to thousands of college students who were living in the Gaza border communities or Sderot at the time of the Oct. 7 attack.
JNF Canada explained that CRA usually takes certain measures, like negotiating compliance agreements or invoking sanctions, before drastically revoking an organization’s charitable status. But, in its dealing with JNF Canada, the CRA “not only skipped steps 1-3, it also refused to enter into a dialogue with us and to entertain our suggestions of new objects for our charity or to discuss a compliance agreement,” the Jewish group said. “We maintain that the CRA erred both in fact and in law and that the process was flawed and unfair, which is why we have ended up in court.”
JNF Canada also maintains that it has addressed CRA’s concerns about its work with KKL by taking steps such as reducing the number of its projects with the group and engaging in a compliant agreement with the Israeli charity.
“KKL works for JNF Canada, just like any other agent that we utilize. JNF Canada selects the projects we wish to support and we always have direction and control over all of the funds as we reimburse expenses upon receipt of valid expense reports. In short, we have addressed the CRA’s concerns.”
JNF Canada’s National President Nathan Disenhouse said in a released statement: “Similar to other charities that support the needs of children, workers, and vulnerable communities we would expect CRA to work with, not against, our charity. Our position is that it is unjust for CRA to revoke a charity because a charitable object that it accepted almost 60 years ago is now no longer considered to be a valid charitable object.”
“It is simply unjust to close a charity supported by over 100,000 Canadians based on reversing a decision the CRA made in 1967,” he continued. “Today’s legal appeal will allow JNF Canada’s concerns to be considered before an impartial legal process.”
Independent Jewish Voices Canada applauded the CRA’s revocation.
“It means Canadian tax money will no longer subsidize the JNF’s illegal support of Israeli apartheid,” the group said. It accused JNF of being compliant in “colonization, occupation and apartheid,” and added that while JNF will appeal the CRA’s decision, “we will again fight every step of the way to make sure they never use this loophole to finance Israeli crimes again.”
The Ne’eman Foundation did not respond to The Algemeiner‘s request for a comment about the CRA’s decision.
According to its website, the Ne’eman Foundation “supports projects that reduce or eliminate poverty, advance education, religion and quality of life, and promote charitable initiatives for community development in Israeli communities.” It provides a “secure financial link” between Israel and Canada and helps Israeli nonprofits build their donor bases in Canada.
With offices in Toronto and Israel, the foundation says it offers Canadians with a wide selection of tax-deductible projects in Israel “that are monitored to guarantee that allocated funds are used accordingly and comply with the requirements of Canadian tax legislation.”
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US Condemns UN for Extending Mandate of Anti-Israel Official Francesca Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The United States has “strongly denounced” the United Nations for extending the tenure of controversial UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, repudiating the decision as an example of “antisemitic hatred” within the international organization.
“The Human Rights Council’s (HRC) support for Ms. Albanese offers yet another example of why President Trump ordered the United States to cease all participation in the HRC,” the US Mission to the UN said in a statement on Tuesday. “Ms. Albanese’s actions also make clear the United Nations tolerates antisemitic hatred, bias against Israel, and the legitimization of terrorism.”
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” that Israel supposedly commits against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Council renewed the mandate of Albanese, despite widespread calls from several countries and NGOs urging UN members to oppose her reappointment due to her controversial remarks and alleged pro-Hamas stance.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities across southern Israel, Albanese accused the Jewish state of enacting a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The United Nations launched a probe into Albanese last summer for allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations. She has also celebrated the anti-Israel protesters rampaging across US college campuses, saying they represent a “revolution” and give her “hope.”
While speaking at a Washington, DC bookstore in October, Albanese also accused Israel of weaponizing the fallout of the Oct. 7 slaughters to justify the continued “colonization” of Gaza.
“The 7th of October is a tragic date for the Israelis, but this is what also triggered the opportunity for Israel to complete and channel the project of colonial erasure. Israel seized the opportunity to complete that plan of realizing Jewish sovereignty only in the land of Palestine,” Albanese said at the time.
The UN official has also decried Israelis as “foreign” Jews who expelled “indigenous” Palestinians from their land for the purpose of creating an exclusionary ethnostate, erasing the millennia-long presence of Jewish people within the land of Israel. She has also repeatedly condemned Israel as a “colonial” enterprise, comparing the Jewish state to British India or French Algeria.
“They used to say, let us colonize Palestine as the Brits have colonized India, as the French have colonized Algeria, because up to 70 years ago, colonialism was totally acceptable. Today, it’s not and so the narrative has changed,” Albanese said.
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Award-Winning French Actress Mélanie Laurent Joins ‘Fauda’ Season 5 Cast in Lead Role
French actress Mélanie Laurent. Photo: yes Studios.
Multi-award-winning French actress Mélanie Laurent will take on a lead role in the fifth season of the popular Israeli television series “Fauda,” Israel’s yes Studios announced this week.
Laurent’s film credits include “Inglorious Basterds” (2009), “Now You See Me” (2013), and “Operation Finale” (2018). She has two César Awards and a Lumières Award. Her most recent work includes last year’s “The Flood,” a French-Italian film where she played Marie-Antionette, and the French-language film “Freedom,” which she wrote and directed.
Laurent will be featured in seven of the nine episodes in season five of “Fauda,” according to yes Studios. Details about her character and role in the Hebrew-language show have not been revealed, but she will star alongside “Fauda” co-creator and lead star Lior Raz, with whom she previously worked on the 2019 Netflix film “6 Underground.”
Season five of “Fauda” is expected to premiere on yes TV in Israel in early 2026 and will later stream worldwide on Netflix, where the first four seasons of the award-winning show are already streaming. Yes Studios announced in March that filming for “Fauda” season five will begin in late April.
The upcoming season will be filmed in Israel and overseas, following the “Fauda” team on a private mission. Details about the plot for the new season have been kept under wraps. The fifth season will mark 10 years of “Fauda” airing in Israel and around the world on Netflix.
Israeli actor Idan Amedi said in February he will not return for the fifth season of “Fauda” because of his music career and ongoing rehabilitation from injuries he sustained while fighting with the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war that began in 2023. Amedi starred in the show as undercover agent Sagi Tzur, who is the husband of intelligence officer Nurit (Rona-Lee Shimon), who will still be featured in the show’s next season. It remains unclear how “Fauda” will address the exit of Amedi’s character.
As Israel’s longest running action series, “Fauda” follows a team of elite Israeli undercover agents as they hunt down and apprehend terrorists. The show is based on the real-life experiences of its creators, Raz and journalist Avi Issacharoff. The new season is being led by season 4 director Omri Givon (“Hostages”) and written by Omri Shenhar (“Tehran”). “Fauda” is produced by yes TV and L. Benasuly Productions for yes TV.
“Fauda” crew member Matan Meir was killed in action in November 2023 while fighting in Gaza as an IDF reservist.
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Israel Will Keep Gaza Buffer Zone, Minister Says, as Truce Bid Stalls
Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, April 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israeli troops will remain in the buffer zones they have created in Gaza even after any settlement to end the war, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday, as efforts to revive a ceasefire agreement faltered.
Since resuming military operations last month, Israeli forces have carved out a broad “security zone” extending deep into Gaza and squeezing some 2 million Palestinians into ever smaller areas in the south and along the coastline.
“Unlike in the past, the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” Katz said in a statement following a meeting with military commanders.
“The IDF will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and the communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza — as in Lebanon and Syria.”
In a summary of its operations over the past month, the Israeli military said it now controls 30 percent of the Palestinian enclave.
In southern Gaza alone, Israeli forces have seized the border city of Rafah and pushed inland up to the so-called “Morag corridor” that runs from the eastern edge of Gaza to the Mediterranean Sea, between Rafah and the city of Khan Younis.
It already held a wide corridor across the central Netzarim area and has extended a buffer zone all around the frontier hundreds of meters (yards) inland, including the Shejaia area just to the east of Gaza City in the north.
Israel says its forces have killed hundreds of Hamas fighters, including many senior commanders of the Palestinian terrorist group, since March 18 but the operation has alarmed the United Nations and European countries.
More than 400,000 Palestinians have been displaced since hostilities resumed on March 18 after two months of relative calm, according to UN humanitarian agency OCHA.
Katz said Israel, which has blocked the delivery of relief supplies into the territory since early March, was creating infrastructure to allow distribution through civilian companies at a later date, but the blockade on aid would remain in place. Israeli officials have noted that Hamas often seizes humanitarian aid heading into Gaza for its own use and will sell the rest to Gazan civilians at high prices, using the money to fund its terrorism operations.
He said Israel would pursue a plan to allow Gazans who wished to leave the enclave to do so, although it remains unclear which countries would be willing to accept large numbers of Palestinians.
RED LINES
The comments from Katz, repeating Israel‘s demand on Hamas to disarm, underscore how far away the two sides remain from any ceasefire agreement, despite efforts by Egyptian mediators to revive efforts to reach a deal.
Hamas has repeatedly described calls to disarm as a red line it will not cross and has said Israeli troops must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.
“Any truce lacking real guarantees for halting the war, achieving full withdrawal, lifting the blockade, and beginning reconstruction will be a political trap,” Hamas said in a statement on Wednesday.
Two Israeli officials said this week there had been no progress in the talks despite media reports of a possible truce to allow the exchange of some of the 59 hostages still held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli officials have said the increased military pressure will force Hamas to release the hostages but the government has faced large demonstrations by Israeli protesters demanding a deal to stop the fighting and get them back.
Israel launched its war in Gaza in response to the October 2023 attack by Hamas on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
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